Forum:Reorganizing glitches
I think that the glitch documentation on this wiki is in serious need of reorganization. ShutUpNavi recommended that I discuss the issue here. I'll use The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Glitches as the primary example for my point. The problem is that the current system forces several glitches -- that are often completely distinct from another and only related by game -- to be described on a single page. This leads to: ;Difficulty citing sources :Citing any sources for multiple glitches would result in completely unrelated citations being jumbled together. REF groups () could be used, but doing so would be a terrible abuse of such functionality for a purpose it was not intended for. ;Forced brevity :Glitches often cannot be described in sufficient detail because there isn't enough room. ;Lowered findability :The only way to find a specific glitch on a page, assuming you haven't been linked to it directly, is to slowly and tediously read through the massive table of contents. ;Longer download times, etc. :It takes longer to load the full page. It takes longer to save edits to the page, be they page-wide or limited to a single section. The page uses more memory once it has been loaded (as elements must be kept track of by the browser). Solutions There are two solutions, one of which is very simple. Both involve, in a nutshell, giving every glitch its own article. This is not as chaotic and disorganized as it may sound. ;Subpages. :The use of subpages is often discouraged on Wikipedia, but Wikia is set up to allow subpages in any namespace. Subpages would work perfectly for this setup. The subpages for Ocarina glitches could look something like this: :*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Glitches :**''A "hub" for Ocarina glitches.'' :*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Glitches/Swordless Link :**''An Ocarina glitch.'' :...as compared to this: :*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Glitches#Swordless Link :**''The link doesn't work because the section is (redundantly) titled "Swordless Link Glitch". I'd change this, but then my next point wouldn't be as obvious.'' :Article titles, link lengths, etc., would be the exact same length if this wiki switched to using subpages, but the use of subpage functionality would allow glitches to actually get their own articles. ;Completely standalone articles. :This is the system that Halopedia has used, and it's worked well for them. Each (notable) glitch gets its own separate article, where it can be fully described, explained, sourced, etc.. Glitches are added to specialized categories (e.x. Category:Halo 3 Glitches) and are also added to navboxes. Pros and cons The benefit of using subpages is that they highlight the distinct hierarchical relationship between games and glitches. Furthermore, one can tell what game a glitch is in simply by looking at its title. All of the navigation aids that can be used in standalone articles (navboxes, etc.) can be used in subpages. However, linking becomes tedious and more difficult compared to the use of standalone articles (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Glitches/Swordless Link versus Swordless Link), but no more tedious and difficult than the current solution. Standalone articles can be categorized by game and support several navigation aids including navboxes. They are easier to find and link to because of their shorter titles, but this comes at the cost of ambiguity; one cannot always identify what game a standalone glitch article belongs to without actually reading the article. (Navboxes could alleviate that problem.) Shared benefits Both solutions have these advantages over the current system: ;Increased findability :One need not search through a bloated table of contents to locate a specific glitch. ;More room to actually describe the glitch / shorter download times / etc. :Feel free to make a glitch article as long as you like. You won't have to worry about page bloat as much. ;Organized citations :It's entirely possible and even recommended to cite screenshots and videos (be they taken with a capture card or ROM and emulator) when describing glitches. Giving each glitch its own article makes it easier to cite glitches, as citations for distinct glitches are not jumbled together. This in turn can and probably will lead to increasingly-accurate glitch documentation. So what do you, the community, think? Personally, I would recommend a switch to standalone articles for glitches; again, it's worked well for Halopedia, and in the (few) cases where the Pokemon Wiki has used standalone articles, it's worked (fairly) well for them. DavidJCobb (talk) 23:06, July 18, 2010 (UTC) = What, if anything, do you think should be done? = While I personally feel that our glitch documentation on one page is fine, but if anything, the subpage idea seems to be the best way. I'd rather not have a bunch of glitch articles floating around. I've suggested on a different forum that we just use the more well-known, but subpages seems to be the encyclopedia answer to this, in my opinion. - McGillivray227 23:11, July 18, 2010 (UTC) :Fine? I suppose. But why settle for "fine" when you could have something like "exceptional"? :P DavidJCobb (talk) 01:16, July 19, 2010 (UTC) At first, I wasn't completely sure about the idea of giving glitches their own subpages, but after some thought, I figured that minor glitches (ones that really only need a few sentences to describe) could be compiled into a single article while the major ones that people will actually look for have their own pages. Personally, I've been bothered a lot by the current state of the glitch pages, but I haven't been sure what to do about it. As long as all the glitches for one game are still listed on one page for easy navigation between the separate pages, I am completely in favor of this. Jedimasterlink (talk) 03:35, July 22, 2010 (UTC) Well, then. Don't mean to speak for other people, but it seems like we have... ;2 in favor of reorganization :DavidJCobb, Jedimasterlink ;2 opposed :Isdrakthül, AuronKaizer If I may make a few replies: @Isdrakthül: I'm not too sure what you meant in your second post, but people already have to look through all of the glitches that don't have their own articles in order to find the one they want. Moving notable (or even notable and semi-notable) glitches into subpages at least gives users a chance of not having to look through all the glitches for a game just to find a specific one. And in response to your first post, the documentation here is hardly accurate. No documentation (that I could find) describes how to identify what version of the game you have. (Not all 1.0s are gold -- I actually happen to own a grey 1.0 cart.) Prior to my edits, the "Debug Command" entry recommended using Crooked Cartridge to crash the game and trigger the crash debugger -- which is undeniably the riskiest and most foolish method one could possibly use to access something as mundane as a crash debugger. And the subglitches of the Swordless Link bug -- arguably the most massive and intricate glitch (and glitch family) in the entire game and possibly even the entire series -- are barely documented at all. I even know of a fairly major bug in the game's graphics and weather engine that is not documented at all here. As for citing sources, I'll happily emulate Ocarina, capture some videos, upload them to YouTube, and make some citeable sources if desired. (This is something I've already done elsewhere.) Source citation is particularly important for glitches because without sources or proof of some kind (be it videos or even just screenshots), anyone can post a bogus glitch and have it slip under the radar. I won't disrupt this wiki just to prove a point, but if I wanted to, I could easily slip in a few completely fake glitches into the Ocarina section, and few people would be able to tell the difference. (And those that took the time to actually attempt the glitches could easily be met with the counter that "You did step X wrong, it's really difficult".) @AuronKaizer: The red tape is simply a trade-off. In my opinion, a temporary spot of difficulty now (in moving the articles) is far better and easier to cope with than the maintainability problems that the current system poses (and will continue to pose, if not replaced). Yes, I'm sure the current system works quite well when the articles are cleaned up, but the cleanup itself is difficult because of that system. There's also the fact that the glitch articles don't seem to get that much traffic (as evidenced by the continued existence of this problem in the first place), meaning that reorganizing them would by no means be a significant disruption to the wiki. I must apologize, by the way, for my tendency to post massive, over-comprehensive blobs of text. DavidJCobb (talk) 02:05, July 28, 2010 (UTC) We need more information and better organization. The latter will most definitely facilitate the former. DavidJCobb (talk) 02:14, July 28, 2010 (UTC) Reasons it will facilitate additional information *Smaller pages consume less bandwidth and memory, and are hence easier to edit. The former speedup helps slow connections; the latter, slow computers. *Subpages (and sections for minor glitches) are more findable (especially if navboxes are created for glitches or something); people with experience or knowledge on a particular glitch are more likely to find it and add additional information. *Citations are easier to manage when subpages or separate articles in general are used, as you don't have multiple unrelated citations getting jumbled together. This makes it easier to make/find and add sources to cite. *Separate pages won't have a massive TOC on the right side, which happens to the the best side to position images on (for readability purposes). IOW screenshots (which may prove a glitch and portray additional information) can be uploaded and added more easily, without ending up with mega-narrow column widths. *Articles that aren't tedious to edit are generally more likely to be edited and hence to receive additional information. :3 If something's easy, people are generally more likely to do it. DavidJCobb (talk) 02:23, July 28, 2010 (UTC) The hub could use a definition list. ;This is a glitch, and it would be a link but I don't want to screw with . :This is a description of the glitch. Lorem ipsum blah blah blah. I tried just using "desu" as more lorem ipsum text, but it got blocked. Lul. ;Another glitch. :3 :Another description. Lorem ipsum blah blah blah. More description. Text. More text. Test text. Text test. And so on. That's also semantic HTML, not like that's a priority on MediaWiki installations :P DavidJCobb (talk) 02:37, July 28, 2010 (UTC) *facepalm* The edits I've made do not consist of any kind of reorganization discussed here. The only edits I've made to any of the glitch sections are edits to reword things or to rewrite information in a clearer manner. So feel free to revert perfectly legitimate edits for little to no justifiable reason. ;reorganize :the act of changing the organization of some object or chunk of information; to rearrange, to restructure ;reword :the act of changing the wording and phrasing of information; to revise DavidJCobb (talk) 19:41, August 1, 2010 (UTC) EDIT: Though if anyone's interested, ;2 opposed :Drak, Auron ;3 supportive :Me, Jedimaster, Ccberman It seems the community -- or at least, the portion of it that's interested -- has decided, and in favor of this measure. DavidJCobb (talk) 19:43, August 1, 2010 (UTC) :You can't count yourself. That'd be conflict-of-interest. My point is, said edits violate the markup in place as of that time. --AuronKaizer ' 19:51, August 1, 2010 (UTC) Conflict of interest? :A 'conflict of interest (COI) occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other. My interest is improving the glitch documentation on Zeldapedia. That's it. That's the only interest I have here. I can't have a conflict of interest when I only have one interest. Also, there was no markup, standard, or specification in place at that time, Auron, nor is there one now. Point me to some Manual of Style section or similar document that explicitly specifies a format for glitches, and then you might have a point. Unless you happen to know something I don't (and unless you can definitively prove it), the only "markup" in place for the glitch documentation was and is "this is how I feel like writing". DavidJCobb (talk) 20:07, August 1, 2010 (UTC) That, now, is a good point. But I should note that my other point -- about the edits that I have made being perfectly permissible -- still stands. DavidJCobb (talk) 20:20, August 1, 2010 (UTC) :Nope, you still edited those edits to fit your own idea for this, and not the pre-existing standards existing at that time, which is the closest thing to a standard we had at that point. --AuronKaizer ''' 20:36, August 1, 2010 (UTC) ::For the "you" and "Link" matter, I agree that "Link" should be used almost always. The only exception would be for things like "pressing the A button." The 20:39, August 1, 2010 (UTC) :::@Auron:' And the pre-existing standards were...? If you're referring to a ''de facto standard, then I should note that a de facto standard is completely different from, far less binding than, far less official than, and far more permissible to ignore than, an actual standard. Still, though, I think I'm starting to see your point. You don't like some newcomer barging in and changing stuff and telling you what you should be doing. :::@The Midna: Actually, I can agree with that mostly, and I'll admit that was a minor issue anyway. IIRC, however, the relevant discussion for that matter was on the talk page for the Manual of Style. :::DavidJCobb (talk) 20:53, August 1, 2010 (UTC)